John Constable was born on June 11, 1776, in East Bergholt, Suffolk John Constable was born on June 11, 1776, in East Bergholt, Suffolk. As a young man he worked for his father in the family business at a flour mill. In 1799, Constable decided to leave the flour mill so that he could study at the Royal Academy School. His first landscape painting was in 1802 and after that he studied painting and English Rural life on his own. Constable developed a distinctly individual style. His paintings were "executed in the open air rather than in a studio, as was customary, was an innovation in English art. Constable departed from the traditions of Dutch and English painting by discarding the usual brown under painting and achieving more luminous lighting effects through the use of broken bits of color applied with a palette knife. The Dedham Vale, The Cornfield, The Leaping Horse, and The Hay Wain are great examples of Constable's individual style and how he was a Romantic Painter.

One of Constable's first important paintings was Dedham Vale of 1802 and the Dedham Vale of 1828. These paintings "repeat intrinsically the composition of that compact gem - like scene" (Reynolds,21). The Dedham Vale of 1828 was painted from a topographical point of view. "The painting shows a view from the hill bordering the Stour Valley. Constable loved the view from the Stour Valley so much, that he drew from almost the same spot in several sketches and painted at least three versions in oil." Constable described the Dedham Vale as, "perhaps my best." Because Constable painted in the open air rather than in a studio, his attention to detail is almost unmatched. The way "he catches the sunlight in blobs of pure white and yellow." Maybe Constable sums it up well when he says; "I should paint my own places best - painting is but another word for feeling. I associate my "careless boyhood" to all that lies on the banks of Stour. They made me a painter and I am grateful" (Reynolds, 31). Constable's next painting is a good example of his Romantic style.

The Cornfield, painted in 1826, shows his Romantic vision of the countryside. The landscape is of the Suffolk countryside with "lovely valleys and peaceful farmhouses." As a young boy Constable would travel down that lane from East Bergholt to the Vale at Dedham on his way to school. There are a number of elements in the Cornfield that Constable focused on. One is the dead tree, "For Constable a tree was not merely a tree; it was at the moment when he painted it something individual and unique." Another example is the drinking boy in the painting, this "may of recalled occasions when Constable slaked his own thirst from the wayside stream" (Reynolds, 76). This quote sums up why Constable attention to detail was so accurate in his painting, In the coach yesterday coming from Suffolk were two gentlemen and myself, all strangers to each other. In passing through the valley about Dedham, one of them remarked to me - on my saying it was beautiful - "Yes Sir - this is Constable's country!" I then told him who I was lest he should spoil it" (Reynolds, 31).

While Constable was gaining fame in Paris, he started working on the most dramatic and impressive of all his Stour paintings, The Leaping Horse. Painted in 1825, "The Leaping Horse illuminates the ambiguity of Constable's vision, it also shows how difficult it was to be a "natural painter" (Kroeber, 109). The painting represents a feature of the working day of Stour, "where a horse leaps over a barrier set across the path to prevent cattle from straying." This is probably his most famous painting next to the Hay Wain. "The angle of vision is not frontal, the main focus of are attention in the painting is the tall trees to our left, the boat, the canal, the gnarled tree, the leaping horse, and the spillway, all form a rectangular cell running diagonally to our view point" (Kroeber, 112). That is what makes this painting enjoyable to look at, there is no one point on the painting that draws more attention to it the another point.

Perhaps "the transposition of the Leaping Horse are efforts by Constable to make himself, and through him the viewer of the painting, more than just a passive spectator" (Kroeber, 112). Although John Constable lived in London, he painted the country around the Stour River. Suffolk, with its open landscapes, gave Constable a vast subject for his paintings. The Hay Wain, painted in 1821, "represents a recollection of one of Constable's favorite sites. The view of the painting gives a sense a tranquillity on a mid - summer day in the countryside." This painting is one of his best works, because of how Constable makes the sun reflect light onto the water and clouds. "The Hay Wain drew so much attention that the painting was moved from Louvre to a place of honor. The King of France awarded Constable a gold medal for his landscape." "Many commentators have linked Wordsworth's and Constable's names; the natural scenes they represent are different. The painting upon which most of Constable's fame rest are of scenes unlike those Wordsworth describes in his poetry" (Kroeber, 10).

Wordsworth never depicts a rural farming scene, or a canal. They are similar in that The structure of Wordsworth's poetry ensures that we are not confined to one moment and Constable's painting, The Hay Wain is organized so as to force our imagination beyond the limits of what is depicted. For each, home is where they felt at home. What each one loved was familiar to them. And they love it because it is familiar" (Kroeber, 25). John Constable had a deep appreciation of the beauty of nature. "As a painter during the Romantic period he emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental in each one of his works." His finest works are of the places he knew and loved best. His impact had an influence on many people such as the Romantics and eventually the Impressionists. John Constable has no real successors and the many imitators used formal composition rather then direct sketches. That is probably why John Constable will always be remembered as one of the greatest British landscape artists of all time.

John Constable Biography - Infos - Art Market East Bergholt 1776 - London 1837 The painter John Constable was born on June 11, 1776 in East Bergholt, Suffolk. Until 1799 he worked in the shop of his father, Golding Constable, but then entered the Royal Academy in London, where he became a student of Joseph Farington. He was strongly influenced by Jacob van Ruisdael and Claude Lorrain, before he found his own style of painting, based on the immediate observation of nature. In spite of his studies at the academy, John Constable largely remained self-taught. In 1802 Constable had his first exhibition in London. That same year, he bought a studio in his home town. In 1809 he met his future wife, Maria Bricknell, the daughter of a civil servant. In 1816, one year after his mother's death, Constable married Maria Bricknell, with whom he had 7 children. John Constable was particularly interested in landscape paintings, in which he tried to capture the phenomena and the variability of nature.

Initially, John Constable's paintings only seemed to meet with little interest in England. After he had participated in the Paris Salon, however, they became very successful in France. Constable's picture "The Hay Wain", which was shown at the Paris Salon, for example, influenced Delacroix's palette. With an animated brush stroke and spatula, John Constable tried to capture the atmosphere of the moment, thereby anticipating the Impressionists' interpretation of nature. In 1824 John Constable even received a gold medal from the French king. Among his most important works are "Malvern Hall" (1809) and "The Cornfield" (1826). Constable's series of watercolors are also very famous. John Constable is regarded as the most important English landscape painter of the 19th century, at a par with William Turner. On November 23, 1828, Maria died from tuberculosis at the age of 41. John Constable died unexpectedly in the night of March 31, 1837.

BBC - History - John Constable z John Constable © Constable was, with Joseph Turner, the major English landscape painter of the 19th century. He is best known for his paintings of the English countryside. John Constable was born on 11 June 1776 in East Bergholt in Suffolk, the son of a prosperous miller. He was educated at Dedham Grammar School, then worked for his father's business. He persuaded his father to send him to study at the Royal Academy Schools, which he entered in 1799. In 1816, after much opposition from her father, Constable married Maria Bicknell. She suffered from tuberculosis, so they lived in Hampstead in north London, which was thought to be healthier than central London. In the early 1820s they began frequent visits to Brighton, also for Maria's health. Constable believed that his paintings should come as directly as possible from nature. He made hundreds of outdoor oil sketches, capturing the changing skies and effects of light. He was happiest painting locations he knew well, particularly in his native Suffolk. He also frequently painted in Salisbury, Brighton and Hampstead, making numerous studies of the clouds over the Heath.

Maria's death in 1828 was devastating for Constable and left him responsible for their seven children. The following year he was belatedly elected to full membership of the Royal Academy. Constable received little other recognition in Britain in his lifetime, but was much better known in France. In 1824, 'The Hay Wain' won a gold medal at the Salon in Paris and Constable had a profound influence on French Romantic artists. Constable died in London on 31 March 1837. John Constable John Constable Location of death: London, England Cause of death: unspecified Nationality: England Executive summary: English landscape painter English landscape painter, born at East Bergholt in Suffolk on the 11th of June 1776. His father was a man of some property, including water-mills at Dedham and Flatford, and two windmills, in which John, the second son, was set to work at the age of seventeen, after leaving Dedham grammar school. From boyhood he was devoted to painting, which he studied in his spare time in company with John Dunthorne, a local plumber and glazier.

While working thus he made the acquaintance of Sir George Beaumont, a mediocre painter but a keen patron of the arts, and was inspired by the sight of Claude's "Hagar and Ishmael" and by some drawings of Girtin which Sir George possessed. His passion for art increasing, he was allowed by his father to visit London in 1795 to consult the landscape painter Joseph Farington, R.A. (1747-1821), who recognized his originality and gave him some technical hints. He also made the acquaintance of the engraver J. T. Smith, who taught him etching, and corresponded with him during the next few years, which were spent partly in London and partly in Suffolk. In 1797 he was recalled to work in his father's counting-house at Bergholt, and it was not until February 1799 that he definitely adopted the profession of painting, and became a student at the Royal Academy. The few existing works of this period are heavy, clumsy and amateurish.

Recognizing their faults, Constable worked hard at copying old masters "to acquire execution." The remedy was effective, for his sketches on a tour in Derbyshire in 1801 show considerable freshness and accomplishment. In 1802 he exhibited at the Royal Academy, and was much helped and encouraged by the president, Benjamin West , who did him a further service by preventing him from accepting a drawing-mastership (offered by Archdeacon Fisher, of Salisbury), and thereby greatly stimulating his efforts. The manner of West appears strongly in the altarpiece painted by Constable for Brantham church in 1804, but Thomas Gainsborough , the Dutch masters and Girtin are the predominant influences upon his landscape, especially Girtin in the year 1805, and in 1806, when he visited the Lake District. From 1806 to 1809 Constable was frequently engaged in painting portraits or in copying portraits by Reynolds and Hoppner. The effect on his landscape was great. He learned how to construct an oil painting, and the efforts of the next few years were devoted to combining this knowledge with his innate love of the fresh color of nature.

With the year 1811 began a critical period. He exhibited a large view of Dedham Vale, in which the characteristic features of his art appear for the first time almost fully developed, and he became attached to Miss Maria Bicknell. His suit was opposed by the lady's relatives, and Constable's apparently hopeless prospects drove him again to portrait painting, in which he acquired considerable skill. It was not until the death of his father in 1816 that he was able to marry and settle in No. 1 Keppel Street, Russell Square, where a succession of works now well known were painted: "Flatford Mill" (1817), "A Cottage in a Cornfield", and in 1819 "The White Horse", which was bought by his great friend Archdeacon Fisher for �105, as was the "Stratford Mill" of 1820. In 1819 two legacies each of �4000 diminished his domestic anxieties, and his talent was recognized by his election in November to the associateship of the Royal Academy.

The series of important works was continued by "The Haywain" (1821), "A View on the Stour" (1822), "Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Garden" (1823), and "The Lock" (1824). This last year was a memorable one. " he Haywain" was sold to a Frenchman, was exhibited at the Louvre, and, after creating a profound sensation among French artists, was awarded a gold medal. In the following year "The White Horse" won a similar distinction at Lille. In 1825 he exhibited "The Leaping Horse" (perhaps his masterpiece), in 1826 "The Cornfield", in 1827 "The Marine Parade and Chain Pier, Brighton", and in 1828 "Dedham Vale." In 1822 Constable had taken Farington's house, 35 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, but his wife's failing health made him turn his attention to Hampstead, and after temporary occupation first of 2 Lower Terrace and then of a house on Downshire Hill, he took No.

6 Well Walk, in 1827, letting the greater part of his London house. In 1848 his financial position was made secure by a legacy of �20,000 from Mr Bicknell, but the death of his wife towards the end of the year was a shock from which he never wholly recovered. His election to membership of the Academy in the following year did not lessen his distress: he felt that the honor had been delayed too long. His chief exhibit in 1829 was "Hadleigh Castle", and this was succeeded by the great "Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows" (1831), "The Opening of Waterloo Bridge" (1832), which had been begun in 1817, "Englefield House" (1833), "The Valley Farm" (1835), "The Cenotaph" (1836), and "Arundel Mill and Castle" (1837). Constable had long suffered from rheumatism and nervous depression, but his sudden death on the 31st of March 1837 could be traced to no definite disease.

He was buried in Hampstead churchyard, where his tomb may still be seen. In May 1838 his remaining works were sold at auction, but fetched very small prices. Many were bought in by his children, and through their generosity have passed to the English nation, as the national collections at Trafalgar Square, Millbank and South Kensington testify. Nowhere else can Constable's art be studied completely or safely, since forgeries and imitations are common and have crept into the Louvre and other famous galleries. Much of the power of his work survives in the noble series of mezzotints made after his sketches by David Lucas, and first issued in 1833. Though a commercial failure at the time of publication, this English Landscape series is now deservedly prized, as are the other plates which Lucas engraved after Constable. Constable himself made a few desultory experiments in etching, but they are of no importance.

As already indicated, the mature art of Constable did not develop until after the year 1811, when he began to combine the fresh color of nature, which he had learned to depict by working in the open air, with the art of making a picture, which he had learned from painting portraits and copying those of other masters. His development was unusually slow, and his finest work, with but few exceptions, was done between his fortieth and fiftieth years (1816-26). During the last twelve years of his life his manner became more free, and the palette knife was constantly used to apply spots and splashes of pure color, so that his technique often suggests that afterwards employed by the Impressionists. Yet his direct influence upon French landscape has sometimes been overrated. When Constable first exhibited at the Salon in 1825 Th�odore Rousseau , the pioneer of French naturalism, was only twelve years old, and the movement of 1830 was really originated in France by Gros and G�ricault , while in England the watercolor painters led the way.

Constable's death in 1837 removed the man and most of his work from the public eye for another generation, and he became a famous shadow rather than a living force. So Monet and the Impressionists, when they sought after the secret of painting air and sunshine, looked to J. M. W. Turner rather than to Constable, and in England the eloquence of John Ruskin pointed in the same direction. Since the British nation came into the possession of a large portion of Constable's pictures and sketches, his work has been better understood. Though limited in range of subject to the scenery of Suffolk, Hampstead, Salisbury and Brighton, his sketches express the tone, color, movement and atmosphere of the scenes represented with unrivalled force and truthfulness, and modern criticism tends to rate their spontaneity above the deliberate accomplishment of his large finished works. His treatment of skies is specially notable. Here his early experience as a miller told in his favor. No one has painted English cloud effects so truthfully, or used them as a compositional quantity with so much skill.

Though in looking at nature he was determined to see with his own eyes and not with those of any former master, he found that the science of his predecessors was necessary to him before his sketches could be translated into large pictures. In these pictures his vivid tones and fresh color are grafted upon the formulae of Claude and Rubens , and it is a common error to regard Constable as an opponent of the great old masters. His pictures, like his writings and lectures, prove just the reverse. His dislike was reserved for the painters who took their ideas from other painters instead of getting them directly from nature. Father: Golding Constable (miller, d. 1816) Mother: (d. 1815) 1000+ images about Art: Constable, John 1776-1837 on Pinterest | Fisher, Portrait and Self portraits Pinterest • The world’s catalog of ideas Art: Constable, John 1776-1837 John Constable, RA was an English Romantic painter.

Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection. Wikipedia 43 Pins304 Followers Suffolk - Famous People Suffolk - Famous People Suffolk - Main Page Top Surnames Edward FitzGerald (1809 - 1883) Edward FitzGerald (poet) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Edward FitzGerald Born 31 March 1809 Bredfield House, Bredfield, Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, United Kingdom Died 14 June 188... George Orwell (1903 - 1950) On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BR... Famous People Connected to Suffolk Image right - Dr. Elizabeth Garret Anderson Those people of note with connections to the county are listed below. Some of these connections are a little tenuous - counties like to lay claim to people of renown!

Please add information about people of renown connected to Suffolk, England. If the person has a profile on Geni please add their profile to the project and add the link in bold. Getting Involved Feel free to follow, request to collaborate To join the project use the request link under "actions" at the top right of the page. Visit See the discussion Project Help: How to add Text to a Project - Starter Kit to get you going! A Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson , LSA, MD (9 June 1836 – 17 December 1917) - was a physician and feminist. She was the second of nine children of Newson Garrett, a grain merchant and maltster from Aldeburgh. After studying medicine in London, her name was entered on the medical register and she was the first woman qualified in Britain to do so. In 1897 Dr Garrett Anderson was elected president of the East Anglian branch of the British Medical Association. On 9 November 1908 she was elected mayor of Aldeburgh, the first female mayor in England. She died in 1927 and is buried in Aldeburgh.

B Benjamin Britten - (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) - the composer, conductor, and pianist, Benjamin Britten was born in Lowestoft, to a dentist father and an amateur musician mother. He was educated at Old Buckenham Hall School in Suffolk, and in 1927 he began private lessons in music that would be the beginning of his now world-famous musical career. C Beryl Cook , OBE - (10 September 1926 – 28 May 2008) - born in Surrey, best known for her comical paintings of people. John Constable (1776-1837) English Romantic painter, was born in East Bergholt, a village on the River Stour in Suffolk, to Golding and Ann (Watts) Constable. His father was a wealthy corn merchant, owner of Flatford Mill in East Bergholt and, later, Dedham Mill in Essex. George Crabbe (24 December 1754 – 3 February 1832) - the English poet and artist, was born in Aldeburgh where he first developed his love of poetry.

In 1768 he was apprenticed to a local doctor. The field of medicine taught and interested him little, and in 1771 he changed masters and moved to Woodbridge. There he met his future wife, Sarah Elmy. His first major work, a poem entitled Inebriety, was self-published in 1775. He became most well known for The Village (1783) and The Borough (1810). He was ordained as a priest in 1872. At one time, Crabbe was also an active and notable coleopterist and recorder of beetles, and is credited for taking the first specimen of Calosoma sycophanta L. to be recorded from Suffolk. D Jimmy Doherty (born 1975) - the Suffolk-based farmer and television presenter was born in Ilford, Essex and trained as a farmer in Cumbria. It was here that he met Michaela Furney, his future wife, and the two of them set up The Essex Pig Company utilising free–range meat production practices.

Jimmy went on buy his own farm in Wherstead near Ipswich, which became the base for his BBC TV series, Jimmy's Farm. E F Millicent Fawcett (1847-1929). - the sister of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, was born to a progressive family who supported the education of women. Mrs Fawcett was a suffragist. In contrast to the militant suffragettes, she believed in using law-abiding, non-violent means to gain the vote for women, including petitions, lobbying and spectacular marches. Mrs Fawcett became president of the 'National Union Women’s Suffrage Societies' which was the largest of the suffrage societies and had some 50,000 members by 1913 Sir Clement Freud (24 April 1924 – 15 April 2009) – broadcaster, writer, politician and chef, was born in Berlin grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and the brother of artist Lucian Freud. In his early years, Clement was one of Britain's first celebrity chefs and wrote various newspaper and magazine columns.

Clement died at his home in Walberswick on 15 April 2009, aged 84. His wife, actress Jill Raymond, runs a successful theatre company near to the family home, and his daughter, broadcaster Emma Freud, and her partner, Four Weddings and a Funeral scriptwriter Richard Curtis, own and reside in a country house also Walberswick. G Thomas Gainsborough FRSA (christened 14 May 1727 – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter. He was born the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver in Suffolk, and, in 1740, left home to study art in London with Hubert Gravelot, Francis Hayman, and William Hogarth. Ronald "Carl" Giles (1916 –1995) – often referred to simply as Giles, this Suffolk-born cartoonist was most famous for his work for the British newspaper the Daily Express. A bronze statue of his character "Grandma" to commemorate him is located in Ipswich town centre. Mary Shelley and wrote the world-famous novel, Frankenstein.

On August 30 1797, Mary Wollstonecraft died from complications ten days after the birth of her daughter. H Jimmy Hoseason (1927-2009) - well-known holiday entrepreneurs, grew up in Lowestoft where his father Wally was the harbourmaster. A civil engineer by trade, he took over his father's small boatyard after Wally's death. Hoseasons was founded in 1944 by Wally, who started hiring out boats in Oulton Broad as holiday homes on behalf of their owners during a fuel ban because of the Second World War. Mr Hoseason, who lived in Beccles, died on Saturday 7th November 2009 at age 82. Bob Hoskins - well known and award-winning actor, Bob Hoskins, is famous for playing a great variety of roles in many films for a long time now (his acting career began in the 1960's). He is especially recognised as having played tough, cockney gangsters - but was actually born in Bury St Edmunds in 1942.

His mother was evacuated to Suffolk from London as a result of the heavy bombings, and the Hoskins family left Bury while Bob was just a baby. I L M Angus McBean (1904-1990) – a highly influential photographer thought to have revolutionized portraiture in the 20th century by photographing the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Agatha Christie, Laurence Olivier, Noel Coward, Vivien Leigh, and The Beatles Sir Alfred Munnings - (8 October 1878–17 July 1959) - one of England's finest painters of horses, Alfred Munnings was born in Mendham, Suffolk. N O George Orwell - Born: Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) - English writer who penned works such as Ninteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, and is considered one of the 20th Century's best narrators of English culture. P John Peel – influential DJ and radio presenter, who lived in Suffolk for 33 years, and his gravestone was erected three years after his death.

Peel was Radio 1's longest serving DJ when he died aged 65 in October 2004, famously championing The Undertones' Teenage Kicks on his show. He was quoted as saying he would like the song's line "our teenage dreams so hard to beat" on his tombstone. The DJ is buried in St Andrew's Church, in the village of Great Finborough, Suffolk. Peel's widow, Sheila Ravenscroft, said: "We have put the words on the stone that he would've wanted. I wouldn't dare do anything else!" Q R Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) His first name is often incorrectly given as "Humphrey". English author and landscape designer. Born Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk Margaret Susan Cheshire , Baroness Ryder of Warsaw and Baroness Cheshire, CMG, OBE (3 July 1924 – 2 November 2000), best known as Sue Ryder, was a British volunteer with Special Operations Executive in the Second World War, who afterwards led many charitable organizations, notably the charity named in her honour.

S WG Sebald - (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001) - Although not a Suffolk resident, the great author WG Sebald focused his second novel, The Rings of Saturn, on an account of his own on a walking tour of East Anglia, including Suffolk. The frist sentence of the novel thus begins: "In August 1992, when the dog days were drawing to an end, I set off to walk the county of Suffolk, in the hope of dispelling the emptiness that takes hold of me whenever I have completed a long stint of work." Claudia Schiffer – German super-model and actress, owns a £5 million Elizabethan mansion, Coldham Hall in Lawshall near Bury St Edmunds. Delia Smith - once celebrity cook, author and TV presenter, Delia Smith is also a Suffolk celebrity for her role as shareholder at Norwich City F.C. Delia resides near Stowmarket with her husband and co-shareholder of Norwich City, Michael Wynn-Jones. Delia has had a varied and successful career, beginning as a behind-the-scenes consultant for Sainsbury's.

She has presented a number of highly popular TV shows and written many well-loved cookery books, each with an aim and focus on teaching basic cookery skills. T Norman Tebbit - outspoken former Conservative MP, a key figure in Margaret Thatcher's government, lives in Bury St Edmunds. His wife Margaret was confined to a wheelchair after the IRA's bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the 1984 Conservative Party conference, where Tebbit was also injured. Twiggy - one of the world’s most famous models, Twiggy, shares a home in Southwold with her actor husband, Leigh Lawson. U V W Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1490–1530) - historical political figure and Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church was born in Ipswich and attended Ipswich School. Wolsey came into great power as King Henry VIII's chief adviser, and held Henry's confidence until the King decided to seek an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn. Wolsey's failure to secure the annulment is widely perceived to have directly caused his downfall and arrest.

In 1529, Wolsey was stripped of his government office and property and accused of treason. Wolsey fell ill and died just before his hearing on 29 November 1530. X-Y-Z John Constable facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about John Constable COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. John Constable John Constable (1776-1837), one of the greatest English landscape painters, represented the naturalistic aspect of romanticism. His calm, deeply poetic response to nature approximated in painting the insights of William Wordsworth in poetry. John Constable was born in East Bergholt, Suffolk, on June 11, 1776, the son of a well-to-do mill owner. The lush, well-watered Suffolk landscape with its rolling clouds and generally flat, but in parts undulating, terrain made a deep impression on his imagination, and no painter has referred more frequently to the scenes of his childhood as a recurrent source of inspiration.

"Those scenes," he later wrote to a friend, "made me a painter," and again, "The sound of water escaping from mill-dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts and brickwork, I love such things." Constable was encouraged first by a local amateur and later by his friend Sir George Beaumont, the painter and collector, who advised him to study the watercolors of Thomas Girtin. Constable said that a painting by Claude Lorrain that he saw at this time marked an important epoch in his life. Beaumont's collection later included the Château de Steen by Peter Paul Rubens, which Constable stable studied closely. On a visit to London in 1796 Constable met the engraver and antiquary J. T. Smith, under whose influence he made sketches of picturesque cottages. In 1799 Constable became a student at the Royal Academy, where he worked diligently at anatomy under a system of instruction concentrating on the human figure as the basis of history painting.

Nature Paintings In 1802 Constable exhibited at the Royal Academy for the first time, declaring his intention to become a "natural painter." The following year he sailed from London to Deal, making drawings of ships in the tradition of the English Thames Estuary school. "I saw," Constable wrote to a friend, "all sorts of weather," and what he described as "the natural history of the skies" became a lifelong object of research, culminating in a series of cloud sketches inspired by the cloud classifications of the meteorologist Luke Howard, who published The Climate of London in 1818-1820. In 1806 Constable spent 2 months touring the Lake District, and the following year he exhibited three paintings from the trip at the Royal Academy. After this, however, he broke with the tradition of picturesque travel, preferring to paint the scenes he knew and loved best, notably his native Suffolk; Salisbury, where he stayed with his friend Bishop Fisher and his family; Hampstead Heath; and the Thames Estuary.

A happy marriage to Maria Bicknell, with whom Constable fell in love in 1809, was delayed until 1816 by the opposition of her maternal grandfather, the wealthy rector of East Bergholt. From these 7 years of uncertainty date those attacks of nervous depression which were occasionally to cloud a life of otherwise singular felicity. In 1824 three of Constable's oil paintings, including The Hay Wain, were exhibited at the Paris Salon, where they were acclaimed by Eugène Delacroix and other painters and won a gold medal. The question of their influence on French contemporaries and ultimately on impressionism has been widely discussed. All that can safely be said is that his break with academic convention made a profound impact and was invoked as a sanction by Delacroix not for imitating the English painter but for greater boldness in his own work. Constable's wife, with whom he had seven children, died in 1828, shortly after he inherited a fortune from her father. Constable had been elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1819, and 10 years later he became a full member.

He died on March 31, 1837, working on the day before his death on Arundel Mill and Castle. Original Contribution Constable's finished landscapes were always greatly admired. He was revolutionary in painting large canvases consistently as sketches, and he later allowed himself considerable painterly freedom in finished pictures, like the magnificent Hadleigh Castle, subtitled Mouth of the Thames, Morning after a Stormy Night. Today it is his large sketchlike paintings that are most sought after, particularly those celebrating the themes that had haunted him from childhood: the mill, the lock, and water reflecting sunlight and clouds. Constable's original contribution was to combine a scientific approach to nature with a romantic intensity of feeling. "Painting," he wrote, "is a science, and should be considered as an enquiry into the laws of nature." But he described his cloud studies as organs of his sentiment, and in a much-quoted passage declared, "painting is with me but another word for feeling." Further Reading The best source for information on Constable is still his own writings. The Letters of John Constable, R. A., to C. R. Leslie, R.

A., 1826-1837, edited by Peter Leslie (1931), contains both the letters, rich in observations on nature and art and illustrating Constable's genius for friendship, and the notes for Constable's critical lectures on the history of landscape painting delivered to the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1836. Also extremely useful are R. B. Beckett, John Constable and the Fishers: The Record of a Friendship (1952), and a six-volume edition of Constable's Correspondence, edited by R. B. Beckett (1962-1968). Besides C. R. Leslie's classic, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, R. A., Composed Chiefly of His Letters (1943; new ed. 1951), there is a scholarly literature of distinction on Constable. Preeminent is Graham Reynolds, Constable: The Natural Painter (1965). Sydney J. Key, John Constable: His Life and Work (1948), is a sound account.

One of the best sources of illustrations, reproducing 597 works, is the Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of the Constable Collection, written by Graham Reynolds (1960). A masterly specialized study, establishing Constable's relation to both poets and painters, is Kurt Badt, John Constable's Clouds (trans. 1950). Additional Sources The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright The Columbia University Press John Constable, 1776–1837, English painter, b. Suffolk. Constable and Turner were the leading figures in English landscape painting of the 19th cent. Constable became famous for his landscapes of Suffolk, Hampstead, Salisbury, and Brighton. The son of a prosperous miller, he showed artistic talent while very young but did not devote himself to art until he was 23, when he went to London to study at the Royal Academy. Influenced by the 17th-century landscape painters Ruisdael and Claude Lorrain, his poetic approach to nature paralleled in spirit that of his contemporary, the poet Wordsworth.

Constable's direct observations of nature and his free use of broken color were extraordinary in his day. He received but modest recognition in England, being tardily admitted to the Royal Academy in 1829. His work was more popular in France. In 1824, his View on the Stour (1819) and The Hay Wain (1821; National Gall., London) were exhibited at the Salon in Paris, winning gold medals. His work made a profound impression on the French romantics including the young Delacroix and Bonington. Later his painting influenced the Barbizon school and, more indirectly, the general course of French 19th-century landscape art. In the United States he is represented in the Metropolitan Museum and the Frick Collection, New York City, in the Mellon Center for British Art, New Haven, Conn., and in the galleries of Philadelphia, Toledo, and Chicago. Splendid examples of his work are contained in the National Gallery, London and the Victoria and Albert Museum. See catalog of the latter collection by G. Reynolds (1960); C. R. Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable (enl. ed.

1937); collections of his letters by P. Holmes (1931) and R. B. Beckett (1962); biography by B. Taylor (1973); studies by C. Peacock (rev. ed. 1972) and R. Gadney (1976). Cite this article The Oxford Companion to British History © The Oxford Companion to British History 2002, originally published by Oxford University Press 2002. Constable, John (1776–1837). Landscape painter, born at East Bergholt (Suffolk), the son of a miller. At first intended for the church, then to follow his father, eventually Constable was allowed to go to London to study at the Royal Academy Schools. Encouraged by Benjamin West , Constable concentrated on studying nature and rarely painted outside the genre of landscape: ‘my art is to be found under every hedge.’ Initially, he worked in the manner of Gainsborough , but slowly developed his own style of conveying nature and humble subjects so as to appear spontaneous and without what he called ‘fal-de-lal or fiddle-de-dee’.

This gained him little recognition at home but a growing reputation in France where his Haywain (1821) influenced the modern school of landscape painters. In 1819 he became ARA, but a further ten years elapsed before he was elected a full academician. Today he is recognized with Turner as the major English landscape painter of the 19th cent. June Cochrane John Constable Facts John Constable Facts John Constable Quotes John Constable (1776-1837), one of the greatest English landscape painters, represented the naturalistic aspect of romanticism. His calm, deeply poetic response to nature approximated in painting the insights of William Wordsworth in poetry. John Constable was born in East Bergholt, Suffolk, on June 11, 1776, the son of a well-to-do mill owner. The lush, well-watered Suffolk landscape with its rolling clouds and generally flat, but in parts undulating, terrain made a deep impression on his imagination, and no painter has referred more frequently to the scenes of his childhood as a recurrent source of inspiration.

"Those scenes," he later wrote to a friend, "made me a painter," and again, "The sound of water escaping from mill-dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts and brickwork, I love such things." Constable was encouraged first by a local amateur and later by his friend Sir George Beaumont, the painter and collector, who advised him to study the watercolors of Thomas Girtin. Constable said that a painting by Claude Lorrain that he saw at this time marked an important epoch in his life. Beaumont's collection later included the Château de Steen by Peter Paul Rubens, which Constable stable studied closely. On a visit to London in 1796 Constable met the engraver and antiquary J. T. Smith, under whose influence he made sketches of picturesque cottages. In 1799 Constable became a student at the Royal Academy, where he worked diligently at anatomy under a system of instruction concentrating on the human figure as the basis of history painting.

Nature Paintings In 1802 Constable exhibited at the Royal Academy for the first time, declaring his intention to become a "natural painter." The following year he sailed from London to Deal, making drawings of ships in the tradition of the English Thames Estuary school. "I saw," Constable wrote to a friend, "all sorts of weather," and what he described as "the natural history of the skies" became a lifelong object of research, culminating in a series of cloud sketches inspired by the cloud classifications of the meteorologist Luke Howard, who published The Climate of London in 1818-1820. In 1806 Constable spent 2 months touring the Lake District, and the following year he exhibited three paintings from the trip at the Royal Academy. After this, however, he broke with the tradition of picturesque travel, preferring to paint the scenes he knew and loved best, notably his native Suffolk; Salisbury, where he stayed with his friend Bishop Fisher and his family; Hampstead Heath; and the Thames Estuary.

A happy marriage to Maria Bicknell, with whom Constable fell in love in 1809, was delayed until 1816 by the opposition of her maternal grandfather, the wealthy rector of East Bergholt. From these 7 years of uncertainty date those attacks of nervous depression which were occasionally to cloud a life of otherwise singular felicity. In 1824 three of Constable's oil paintings, including The Hay Wain, were exhibited at the Paris Salon, where they were acclaimed by Eugène Delacroix and other painters and won a gold medal. The question of their influence on French contemporaries and ultimately on impressionism has been widely discussed. All that can safely be said is that his break with academic convention made a profound impact and was invoked as a sanction by Delacroix not for imitating the English painter but for greater boldness in his own work. Constable's wife, with whom he had seven children, died in 1828, shortly after he inherited a fortune from her father. Constable had been elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1819, and 10 years later he became a full member.

He died on March 31, 1837, working on the day before his death on Arundel Mill and Castle. Original Contribution Constable's finished landscapes were always greatly admired. He was revolutionary in painting large canvases consistently as sketches, and he later allowed himself considerable painterly freedom in finished pictures, like the magnificent Hadleigh Castle, subtitled Mouth of the Thames, Morning after a Stormy Night. Today it is his large sketchlike paintings that are most sought after, particularly those celebrating the themes that had haunted him from childhood: the mill, the lock, and water reflecting sunlight and clouds. Constable's original contribution was to combine a scientific approach to nature with a romantic intensity of feeling. "Painting," he wrote, "is a science, and should be considered as an enquiry into the laws of nature." But he described his cloud studies as organs of his sentiment, and in a much-quoted passage declared, "painting is with me but another word for feeling." Further Reading on John Constable The best source for information on Constable is still his own writings. The Letters of John Constable, R. A., to C. R. Leslie, R.

A., 1826-1837, edited by Peter Leslie (1931), contains both the letters, rich in observations on nature and art and illustrating Constable's genius for friendship, and the notes for Constable's critical lectures on the history of landscape painting delivered to the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1836. Also extremely useful are R. B. Beckett, John Constable and the Fishers: The Record of a Friendship (1952), and a six-volume edition of Constable's Correspondence, edited by R. B. Beckett (1962-1968). Besides C. R. Leslie's classic, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, R. A., Composed Chiefly of His Letters (1943; new ed. 1951), there is a scholarly literature of distinction on Constable. Preeminent is Graham Reynolds, Constable: The Natural Painter (1965). Sydney J. Key, John Constable: His Life and Work (1948), is a sound account.

One of the best sources of illustrations, reproducing 597 works, is the Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of the Constable Collection, written by Graham Reynolds (1960). A masterly specialized study, establishing Constable's relation to both poets and painters, is Kurt Badt, John Constable's Clouds (trans. 1950).

Question: Which English painter was born in East Bergholt, Suffolk in 1776?
Answer: John Constable